It’s a Good Old-Fashioned Dad-Off in the New ’Daddy’s Home’ Trailer

When two families become one and impressionable, guileless children suddenly find two men in close competition for their affection and allegiance against the other, things can get ugly quick. Divorce tears children’s lives apart, and in the very worst cases, pettiness from the adults in their lives can pervert their emotional development for life. God forbid that any parent should ask a child to testify against the other in a custody case, but barring that, the process by which fathers and stepfather shamelessly heap gifts upon their children in an effort to secure their love can be sickeningly manipulative. Whoever has what it takes to be “the fun dad” will stay in his children’s good graces while the other will be slowly frozen out by kids who can’t possibly understand the emotional complexity of the situation at hand.

After earning huge laughs with their whiskey-and-water dynamic in 2010's The Other Guys, Wahlberg and Ferrell reteam for a comedy that puts a hilarious spin on the emotional fallout of divorce. Ferrell plays a dependable, if a bit milquetoast, stepdad who couldn’t be happier raising his new wife’s (Linda Cardellini, latter-day Freaks & Geeks star) children with her. But trouble comes to town when Wahlberg as bad-to-the-bone ex Dusty power-strides back into their lives, bringing his bulging biceps, skateboard skillz, and desperate need to be liked with him. (That both Ferrell and Wahlberg could fall for the lovely and delightful Caredllini represents the lone facet of this film that doesn’t cartoonishly stretch the bounds of disbelief.)

The first trailer gave us another taste of the collision of Ferrell and Wahlberg’s actorly sensibilities that made for such a great study in contrasts with The Other Guys, but this extended trailer (an exclusive on Ellen, which is strange, but sure) goes deeper into the meat of the film. There will be silly setpieces galore, from an ill-fated skateboarding match complete with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance from it-comedian Hannibal Buress, to a bedtime story that devolves into a highly figurative dick-measuring contest.

Give the trailer embedded above a look-see, and luxuriate in Wahlberg’s weird pronunciation of the word “sword” at 1:20. Daddy’s Home comes to theaters on December 25, so get in gear to celebrate the birth of our lord and savior Jesus Christ with his most faithful disciple, Transformers: Age of Extinction star Mark Wahlberg.